"Hamas" has expressed its readiness to release 34 of the hostages it is holding in the Gaza Strip as the "first stage" of a ceasefire agreement with Israel. However, the Jewish state said it had not yet received any list from the Palestinian Islamist movement, Agence France-Presse reported, quoted by BTA.
A Hamas representative told AFP yesterday that the group of 34 hostages included "all women, sick people, children and the elderly" among the Israeli hostages. The Palestinian Islamist movement needs a week to contact all the kidnappers and determine which of the captives are alive, he added.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement that "contrary to what has been reported, Hamas has not yet provided a list of the hostages."
Indirect talks between the two sides in the conflict resumed over the weekend in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which is mediating with Egypt and the United States in an attempt to reach a ceasefire agreement and release the hostages.
This came just over two weeks before US President-elect Donald Trump took office. A close ally of Israel, Trump, who will be sworn in on January 20, has already increased pressure on "Hamas".
Rescue services in the Gaza Strip reported at least 23 deaths in Israeli strikes in the Palestinian territory yesterday.
In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army shot and killed a Palestinian teenager during its operation.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in the room of the Lebanese military operations group, a senior official of the group said, quoted by the Associated Press and BTA.
Several buildings were destroyed in a series of Israeli airstrikes on September 27 last year in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which are a stronghold of "Hezbollah". One of those attacks killed Nasrallah, who had led the Iran-backed group for 32 years. According to media reports, he had attended an underground meeting with other senior figures.
The Lebanese Health Ministry reported a total of six deaths.
Wafiq Safa, a senior Hezbollah security official, told a news conference yesterday that Hassan Nasrallah was killed in the room where the group was conducting its military operations. He did not give details.
According to Lebanese media, Safa himself was targeted by Israeli airstrikes in the center of the capital Beirut before the ceasefire was agreed, but he was unharmed.
The agreement came into effect in late November, after Israel had previously inflicted many painful blows on "Hezbollah".
He undertook these operations because the Lebanese group had been subjected to practically daily shelling since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by an attack by "Hamas", another Iranian-backed movement, against Israel on October 7 last year.